OCR Text |
Show EAST INTERESTED IN 111 COAL GROWTH Extended Comment Seen About United States Company Com-pany and Its Activities. The Interest that the east is displaying display-ing In the coal mining enterprise of the United States Smelting. Refining &-. Mining Min-ing company may be gathered from tho follow excerpt from the Wall Street Journal Jour-nal of August 20: Directors of United States Smelting who have within the lost few weeks examined exam-ined the companj's Utah coal lands speak with great opllmlsim Of the outlook for earnings in this direction within a reasonable rea-sonable length of time. It will at the outside be but two years from date before the Utah company, the coal subsidiary holding title to1 those 1',-000 1',-000 acres of c'oril lands, finishes the construction con-struction of its eighty-mile road to connect con-nect with Union Pacific and give it an addition outlet for its coal Seven surveying sur-veying parlies are now in the field and a few weeks will see this portion of the work finished. The general location of the line is definitely established and rights of way are secured. The present facilities of the coal properties prop-erties are confined to a connection with the. Denver & Rio Grande road by a twenty-three-mile branch owned by the Utah company. The Gould road Is giving giv-ing excellent service and is doing its part In helping get a. larger production of coal to market. When the coal properties were acquired It was stated that production was at. the rate of 500,000 tons yearly. The current output is about ToO.OOO lone axid this rate will gradua-lly increase, so that by the llrst of January it is likely the mines will be outputting the equivalent of 1, 000,000 tons yearly. When United States Smelting went Into the coal business last spring it financed the purchase of these coal properties through sale of Jin.00O.0O0 6 per cent notes. This callB for an annual interest charge of 1500,000. This Is considerably more than the coal properties are today earning net. It Is probably more than they will earn until the new railroad line Is finished and In operation, but it is. perhaps per-haps conservative to estimate that United States Smelting Is today meeting less than 6 per cent of this interest charge out of its own earnings. This percentage will steadily decline as coal output Is increased in-creased up to and beyond 1,000,000 tons. |